Why IVC exists
Vaccine codes are used for different purposes in different systems and jurisdictions. They also change over time, while a person's vaccination history may need to remain understandable for a lifetime. The knowledge needed to manage those differences is specialized, distributed, and not always easy to find.
IVC supports the people who create, maintain, and interpret vaccine code sets. Participants contribute their own experience; they do not automatically represent or commit their employers, programs, countries, or jurisdictions.
What we do
- Hold monthly peer meetings.
- Develop processes for documenting vaccine code systems.
- Support tools and working methods for aligning code systems with NUVA.
- Develop useful measures that support and explain alignment work.
- Publish technical resources and shared knowledge.
- Provide a place to bring technical questions and learn from peers.
What we do not do
IVC does not set vaccination policy, choose code systems for organizations or jurisdictions, or replace the bodies that own vocabularies and standards. It does not manage vaccine supply, medication inventory, program finances, pharmacovigilance, protected health information, or operational systems.
IVC may offer technical perspectives and best-effort peer support, but it does not issue binding decisions or guarantee an answer to every question.
NUVA and IVC
NUVA is the central technical work product around which IVC organizes much of its current work. IVC provides a collaboration space and helps develop tools, processes, and extension layers, but it does not currently authorize changes to the NUVA core. Work toward broader community support continues through NUVA's existing stewardship process.
From IVCI to IVC
The collaboration was formerly called the International Vaccine Codes Initiative (IVCI). “International” was sometimes understood to mean that the work applied only to cross-border exchange, even though vaccine-code challenges also occur within countries and organizations.
The name Immunization Vocabularies Collaboration better reflects the work: a collaboration that supports many vaccine vocabularies without replacing their owners. Historical presentations and records retain the former name where it was accurate at the time.